New member from Melbourne, Australia

[warranator]

Been lurking around here for a while now, love the site and love the items that have been made so I decided it was time to register. I am a CNC lathe programmer setter and I have a CNC router/mill at home but most of my stuff gets made at work on the CNC lathes and manual milling machine with DRO.
I made the basic oscillating steam engine from John Tom's site and was quite surprised at how well it works, I would like to move on to something a bit more advanced and was wondering if anybody could steer me in the direction of some plans for a basic valve steam engine. A rotary valve steam engine is what I would really like to build next but will see what plans I can get.

Once again, excellent site, spent many hours browsing through.

 

[waynes world]

welcome to you its a great place to lurk, i am 160 k''s se of you ( latrobe valley) .

cheers wayne

 

[Maryak]

Warranator,

Welcome to our forum. wEc1

Best Regards
Bob

 

[tel]

Welcome Warranator (not related to the Governator are you?) The John Tom site has a lot of plans for valve engines of all sorts. Well worth the 'price'

 

[ShedBoy]

HI FROM THE OTHER SIDE, I AM YELLING CAUSE IT IS A FAIR OLE DISTANCE. Just kidding. Plough book sales sell some good books. I bought a book which had engines ffrom the first year of model machinist magazine. Well worth the money, under $20 and has steam, IC, boilers, miniature coils etc. This engine is in the book as being a high speed marine power plant.
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310318380185&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

This engine I would like to scale up one day.

 

[warranator]

Thanks to everyone that replied. I have looked at lots of plans for a valve engine but have not found anything suitable so I think I am going to have a go at designing and building my own basic valve engine. Can anyone tell me if a valve engine works anything like an oscillating engine where you have a push and pull force from your steam/compressed air? Or does a valve engine just rely on the momentum of the fly wheel to get it to the next stroke?

 

[tel]

By push/pull do you mean double acting? As in the piston is under power in both direction? The short answer is either, tho the bulk of valve engines are double acting. Similarly, oscillating engines can also be either. And all come in a bewildering array of configurations. A good starting point would be to have a good study of THIS site

 

[warranator]

Yes I do mean push pull under power. I think I have settled for a twin cylinder with a valve design I have come up with (probably not a new design but something I have thought of that would be very quick and easy to design and make) and it also means there will be push power on each cylinder and not to much reliance on fly wheel momentum. Anyway will see how it goes and will post some pictures in the near future. Have picked out all my materials today so will probably make a start tomorrow.

Cheers and thanks to everyone that commented.

 

[Ora Banda]

You may wish to look at this site... may not be exactly what you are looking for but lots of ideas and plans for a variety of steam engines

http://www.packratworkshop.com/lib15.htm

Regards, John... also in Melbourne